The Black Demon: Tepid eco-horror is a near shark-free farrago

The Black Demon (M,100mins) Directed by Adrian Grunberg *½

If you see only one megalodon movie this month – don’t make it this deeply-disappointing monstrosity.

Virtually free of anything remotely resembling on or under-water action, this tepid B-grade eco-horror makes Meg 2: The Trench look like a comparative cinematic masterpiece.

As a portentous and pretentious opening voice-over and on-screen titles inform us, for hundreds of years, fishermen have shared tales of a mythical shark off the Baja coast. One of god-like proportions who only comes when summoned and “drives men to the brink of insanity with visions of death” (important to note because it allows the film-makers to limit their bad boy’s screentime – the eponymous El Demonio Negro effectively only cameoing in his own movie).

Nixon Oil inspector Paul Sturges (Ford v Ferrari’s Josh Lucas, doing his Matthew McConaughey-lite shtick the way only he can) could be forgiven for thinking his car journey south with wife Ines (Fernanda Urrejola), teen daughter Audrey (Venus Ariel) and tween son Tommy (Carlos Solorzano) is equally tortuous.

While Audrey opines that she’s already sick of Costa Azul before they’ve even got there, her constant bickering with Tommy reaches a crescendo when he notes that the “only pirate she knows is the one at the bottom of a bottle of Captain Morgan”.

Meanwhile, Ines is concerned that Paul hasn’t booked them anywhere to stay in the place where they first met long ago.

While he has sold it as a holiday to his family, they’re really just tagging along on a work trip. He’s there to check on the health of the El Diamante oil rig.

“You’re going to decompose it?” Tommy asks – a query quickly corrected by his dad. “Decommission it. But it all depends on whether she passes on safety measures and system functionality and only if we can’t resuscitate her.”

However, to his and Ines’ shock, Costa Azul looks like it has been long abandoned – the once thriving community now resembling a shambolic ghost town.

The locals’ reception to their arrival is cool to say the least, Paul concerned enough to pay off a bartender to keep an eye on his brood, while he takes the short boat-ride to complete his mission. He rapidly senses though that something is decidedly off, especially when his guide refuses to take him all the way to the rig.

And, as he makes the final leg of his journey solo, Ines’ bottle-smashing response to a bar patron getting handsy requires her and the kids to make a quick getaway – a necessity hampered by the discovery that someone has slashed their tyres.

As they negotiate their way out to join him off the coast, Paul arrives at El Diamante to find it in a less-than-ideal state. Only two crew members and their cute dog remain, clearly shaken by something and warning that the structure is in danger of imminent collapse. Not only has it been leaking oil for some time, but it is also stalked and constantly being bashed by a giant shark seemingly hell-bent on its destruction.

“What’s happening here?” Paul asks. “You don’t want to know,” worker Chato (Julio Cesar Cedillo) replies.

“Don’t try to understand it, just accept it’s real – and it’s alive. And if you’re going to ask me questions about planes, radios, or any way to get off this rig, we’re going to be here a long time.”

Yes, Mexican director Adrian Grunberg (Rambo: Last Blood, Get the Gringo) and his two screenwriters clearly don’t want the audience thinking too hard about things like plot and motivation.

Sure, its environmental message is laudable, but it’s somewhat muddled and muddied by a fishy undertone around Paul finding his faith and being forced to potentially atone for past sins.

As he wrestles with his inner-demons more than the giant waterborne one, you’re left rather bored and counting the minutes until the inevitable moment of reckoning for him, El Diamante and El Demonio Negro. And even that is something of a damp squib.

The Black Demon is now available to rent from Neon, iTunes, GooglePlay and YouTube.